The present invention relates techniques to access and use mobile applications (or “apps”) on mobile devices.
With the boom of mobile apps now available on multiple app stores, smartphone users are more and more reluctant to install new applications on their device especially if they know that they will use this application in a temporary manner. For example, an average of twenty-six mobile apps are downloaded onto each smartphone worldwide. In industrialized countries, the number of downloaded apps per smartphone approaches fifty. There are several problems associated with downloading an increasing amount of mobile applications.
For example, the process of searching for the right application for a service that will be used sparingly is complex and boring for the user of the mobile device. Moreover, when the users are in front of the service, downloading and installing a mobile application can take time and is not always possible (mobile network availability/speed, application configuration, etc.). This is particularly true when this service is restricted to a particular place and making the application accessible on a worldwide app store is unnecessary.
On the other hand, more and more service providers and retailers base their business and their achievement on their mobile app acceptance rate. Then, the challenge for them is to deploy their mobile app on a maximum of customer mobiles. So if an application is required to be installed on the device before accessing a desired service, the service provider will have to make a costly promotion for motivating the clients to install the app in advance. At last, for the above reasons, if the service is attached to a given place, this will be even more difficult for the service provider to convince the customer to anticipate the downloading of the application.
Another strategy for the service providers and retailers should be to use preinstalled/horizontal applications that are natively installed on customer's mobile. This approach is interesting if the functional scope proposed by this common app is able to fit the service provider requirements. By example, with the iPhone, the service could be interested in using the Passbook app for storing a loyalty card identification (“ID”). But with this application, the service provider knows that the user experience is standardized and is the same for all service providers.